Maraschino Cherry Cookies Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Are maraschino cherries good baking? ›

These cherries are commonly used as a garnish in drinks, ice cream sundaes and embellishment in decorated cakes. They can also be used in cookies, muffins and cold cake fillings such as black forest cakes and as a topping in pineapple upsidedown cake.

To make your own, you'll bring sugar, water, lemon juice, vanilla extract, and almond extract to a simmer. The teaspoon of almond extract gives the cherries their signature maraschino taste.

These cherries are just as delicious in pound cakes, cookies, and ice creams as they are on top of drinks, trifles, and hams. Many of these recipes also use the juices in the jar for a double dose of cherry flavor.

In their modern form, the cherries are first preserved in a brine solution usually containing sulfur dioxide and calcium chloride to bleach the fruit, then soaked in a suspension of food coloring (common red food dye is FD&C Red 40), sugar syrup, and other components.

Queen Anne Cherries

However, their not-too-sweet and not-too-tart flavor makes them great cherries for baking when it comes to pie filling, especially if you want something with a flavor that has a few more layers than something that's simply super-sweet.

Does a maraschino cherry stay in your stomach for seven years? Uhm, no. That's another one of those weird urban myths you don't need to worry about any more. You digest maraschinos just as you would any other fruit or candy.

Prunus cerasus marasca Maraschino Cherry PFAF Plant Database.

You should not feed any kind of cherry to a dog. There are many different types of cherries out there, including bing, rainier, black and maraschino. Although maraschino cherries don't have a pit, they contain a lot of sugar, which isn't suitable for dogs.

The cherries are first soaked in a brine solution that typically contains calcium chloride and sulfur dioxide. This bleaches the cherries, removing their natural red pigment and flavor. The cherries are left in the brine solution for four to six weeks (3).

An urban myth prevented me early on from eating them – word got around they were preserved in formaldehyde and could not be digested. Not quite, as it turns out. The cherries are actually preserved in sodium metabisulfate, calcium chloride and citric acid and subsequently dyed those alarming shades of red and green.

Does Aldi have maraschino cherries? ›

ALDI CherryMan Maraschino Cherries Same-Day Delivery or Pickup | Instacart.

Contrary to popular belief, grenadine is not a cherry-flavored syrup. Maraschino cherries have nothing to do with it. This sweet-tart syrup is actually made from pomegranates, and it is surprisingly easy to make at home. Think of grenadine the way you might consider simple syrup and sour mix.

Originally, sour marasca cherries from the Dalmatian Coast were soaked in maraschino liqueur, an Italian spirit distilled from the pits, stems, leaves, and flesh of the same cherry.

Bright red maraschino cherries are colored with red dye #40 (E129 in Europe), as is Peychaud's Bitters and other food and beverage ingredients. Some websites claim that this dye and others are linked to cancer, but this dye is not considered “toxic” nor banned as a food additive in the US or EU.

They are pricey because Luxardo uses marasca cherries, a particular type of cherry that's only grown in northeastern Italy. It's an uncommon variety and is therefore more expensive. Luxardo also uses high-quality ingredients and an age-old candying process, which pushes up the cost.

Maraschino cherries lose many vitamins and minerals during the bleaching and brining process. Maraschino cherries pack nearly three times as many calories and grams of sugar than regular cherries — a result of being soaked in the sugar solution. They also contain far less protein than regular cherries.

While there's no “wrong” decision when it comes to which variety to use, the best cherries for cake are probably the sweeter ones (Morello, Bing, or Rainier). For reference, Morello tends to be the most popular choice when it comes to cherry pie filling.

Maraschino cherries, on the other hand, might already be sitting in your fridge -- especially if you've got a sweet tooth and like to indulge in homemade desserts. Even though they're more commonly used as garnishes or toppings, you can utilize them to replace grenadine.

Originally, maraschino cherries were made from marasca cherries (a variety of cherry native to Croatia). Sour cherries are a popular alternative, but really, when it comes to making your own, you can use whatever variety you like.